There is so much fuss about leadership. And as usual, I am least interested in the normal, regular stuff. What excites me are newer ways, newer perspectives, something unique & something that stands out from the crowd. All credit to my Enneagram style 4. Well, that's my box, I am aware of it and I am also open to embracing the good aspects of other styles. But around leadership, I have a very different view and may not conform to the normal ways that we look at leadership. For major part of my life, I have been led by others. I somehow attracted some influential figures one or the other way around and would abide by mostly what those leaders would think & say. I bestowed those leaders to have an influence on me. And when I say leader, it can be your parents in your growing years, your teachers, your friends whom you looked up to, your boss during your formative years while in your professional journey, your partner and so on. A leader is someone who inspires you, influences you by their being to bloom into who you truly are. You get drawn by them, their ideas and have a deep sense of trust on them to be able to lead, guide & take you forward to a path that you might resist or may not be sure of. 

When you are not conscious, not aware of yourself, have a distorted self-image within for whatsoever reason, have the attitude of always getting affected by other's opinions and don't have the courage to look into the leadership within you, this very essence of idealizing & having admiration for others, become detrimental to your self-growth in reality. This very attitude of being just a follower takes a toll on your life and your being. You slowly start to get molded into ways that you are being shaped by them. You then get enrolled to the leader and slowly start to lose touch with your essence. The very essence that makes you unique in your own ways. You become so absorbed in their ways and ideas, that you start losing confidence in your own decision making capabilities. You start to doubt your ways, your ideas and slowly put a silent mask & become that person who your leader wants you to be.

THE FOUR TENDENCIES
For quite sometime, I felt trapped with such leadership. No offense to anyone. Everyone did their best. But I was unaware of what the real problem was. And I always felt like a victim to such leadership styles, where the relationship was majorly vertical. And I completely take responsibility for enabling such patterns in my life. My being was so, that I attracted those leaders in my life who could lead me to be like them or if not, obey what they wanted me to do. This was conflicting for me! Because in the inside, there was a rebel who wanted to defy everything and break-free. Which I very well hid from the rest of the world. Do check out the four tendencies quiz by Gretchen Rubin to know your style. For your benefit I am sharing the link here quiz.gretchenrubin.com/. It is a free test and worth taking.  

I strongly believe that what you need exactly at the moment for your greater good, comes to you in different forms in disguise. So, just after my coaching session today, I had a gap of one hour or so. To relax myself, I thought of giving a call to one of my friends. She is someone whom I have known for many years now. And we talk on & off whenever we face any challenge or just a casual sharing about how things are in our life. Sharing is mutual & I acknowledge the fact that our conversations are intellectually stimulating, thought provoking & I always benefit from the discussions. Same goes for my friend too. So, today while we were discussing things, somehow a topic came up around coaching. And I asked my friend a question: "What kind of a coach you would like to have in your life given a choice?" Let me give you the context. My friend was struggling with some professional challenges and we were brainstorming to arrive at some possible solutions. To my question, my friend answered: "I would hire a coach who is well-known as an expert in his/her field, who has a proven track record in my area of expertise, who has many years of experience, who can tell me what I am supposed to do & how, someone who would guide me because he/she has traveled a path similar to me & someone senior. That would be my kind of coach, my mentor who would give facts, have strong data to support what he/she is saying."

Hearing this version of a coach from my friend pained me to the core. Because it didn't resonate with my essence of a coach or coaching for that matter. Had it been the earlier me, I would have instantly reacted to this difference and end up with something not so pleasant. But, I have evolved & transformed over these couple of years as a coach, as a leader & human being in totality. All thanks to my coaches, the coaching that I have consciously undertaken for my own growth, mostly because of my strong trust in the coaching modality & my coaches; a positive attitude backed up with my strong commitment to actions! Over these years I have become aware of myself & my patterns. So, I chose to just listen to what my friend had to say. I chose to understand my friend from her space rather than reacting to something inside me which triggered the pain in me. That needs to be dealt separately! I get that. I was aware of this and this helped me to manage my emotions well & turn around my responses. My current coach gave me a wonderful tool which is like this:

Over these years, since I have myself experienced the benefit of having a coach, since I have witnessed the transformation in me & how that changes my being & my actions, I have decided to always have a coach to enable me to grow to my next level. Coming back to the above spectrum in the above picture, many a times we choose to be in either of these two spaces depending on our personal experiences. But commitment doesn't fall into this spectrum although we might think it does. Commitment is absolutely different. Whenever I tend to move to either of these, my coach asks me this question: "What's your commitment? Are you reacting from the space of attachment to the outcome or from withdrawal due to neediness or you stand tall to your commitment?" For major part of my life, I choose to operate from either of these two spaces. But, that only temporarily satisfied my ego & didn't fetch me anything in the long run. So, as I became aware of this in me, I chose to stand up for my commitment to make a difference in my people whom I am drawn to serve without caring if they would approve of it or not. So, after my friend finished sharing her perception of who a coach is & whom she would like to hire; I shared who a coach to me is & what coaching is all about to make it more real. 

I began this way: I firmly believe in coaching and I see that impact in me; which my friend agrees too. I never hire coaches based on how much experience they have or if they have expertise in my field or not. I factually & intuitively look for two things: who they are being (how authentic & genuine they are?) and will I gain by being in their presence & container? It's a matter of deep trust in my coach's coaching skills & not subject matter expertise, it's a kind of space that is built where I can freely lower my guards & talk about my deepest challenges/fears, secret dreams that I have & then take actions with self commitment & trust. It's a relationship where I don't have to look up to & feel inferior & intimated by who they are, but be inspired to raise to their vibrations. I don't want anybody to tell me what needs to be done because that would be a disrespect to my wholeness & resourcefulness that I am bestowed with. Neither do I want others to influence my decisions but honestly give me feedback and leave the choices to be made by me to me. We all are different and as a high potential, driven, ambitious person, I need a partner to partner with me to be able to be my side & support me to get to where I want to. I am not looking for tips, quick fix solutions, because I believe I am reliable & competent enough to find the answers myself. Just that I need a coach who is an expert in coaching skills which involves rapport building(to enable me to connect deeply with my coach), intuitive ability(to understand beyond data & facts), deep listening(to read what I haven't shared, pick up on subtle cues), questioning(to know the underlying truth, the real reason), feedback giving(to enable me to make the right choices & take actions accordingly), holding me accountable for my goals & dreams, someone who is committed to me, while I am committed to my goal.  Because after all its my goal. I hire my coach to support me in achieving that goal. It's never the other way round. My coach doesn't have to attain my goals for me. 

My coach is an expert in coaching who shows me what I don't see, what my spouse doesn't see, what my friends don't see, what my mentors don't see & what I resist seeing & doing. My coach is such an expert who in a seemingly skillfully easy way inspires me, elicits the answers from me, draws me, pulls me towards an action oriented mode to be able to get to a space where I myself move forward to my goals. This in itself is an exceptional art & science that needs mastery & only coaches who have done deep work, committed to deep work on themselves, who have intentions bigger than self, an intention to creating an impact & to transformative service, who have strong leadership presence not necessarily in professional area only will be able to do that. And years of experience doesn't matter to me at all. I look for such coaches. And I model exactly that with my clients too. May be then I am not the right coach for those who are looking for tips, short-cuts, quick success, spoon-feeded strategies. For a transformation to happen, it takes time, commitment & doesn't come cheap. And I am ready to invest or create the money to work with my kind of coaches because I know it is powerful, impactful & life changing.  

Here are examples of coaches who I look up to & who has made remarkable life transformations in their clients' lives & who has no background in any of the fields that their clients are into. They are skillful in the coaching skill and so in their result creation for their clients. 

• Steve Chandler
• Steve Hardison
• Tony Robbins
• Robin Sharma
• Michael Serwa

The list is long and currently I have enrolled myself in a coaching program where I will be coached by two of the most extra-ordinary coaches in a group format that includes coaches like me, a mastermind group where I am not playing to gather tips & tools but to evolve to my next level, to do the deep work that a coach needs to do to be able to transcend to that level where I take all the requisite actions to achieve all that I want to create in my life & profession. I want to design & create my life & not leave that to someone else's mercy. I want to declare & fulfill my intentions and for that I need my kind of coaches to be able to support me to progress with velocity, embrace newer ways & most of all having fun in the journey. And all of these doesn't happen overnight, it takes time, patience & courage to keeping playing despite of all the inhibitions. 

And as I shared all of these, my friend towards the end told me,"I didn't know that coaching is all of these. I thought coaching is all about self-discovery & nothing more than that. So, it never appealed to me because I thought to guide me, one has to be an expert in his/her field. Otherwise how will he/she guide me? I didn't know the art & science behind coaching. Thank you for the enlightenment!" I responded to my friend,"Buddy let me simply gift you a session or connect you to my coach & then you will have an experience of what it is. No amount of my telling will support you. Experience it and see for yourself." To which my friend readily agreed & we had a great laugh together.

P.S. This blog doesn't intend to demean any modality but just sharing what the essence of coaching is from the author's perspective who is a professional coach. 

Love & respect,
Priyanka

If you really want to do a favour to the Universe, then don't hold back, don't hide your magic. Let the magic flow through you. And everyone has the magic in them. The only thing standing in its way is "YOU". Yes, you are getting in the way to creating a magical experience not only for yourself but for others who can benefit from your magic. It's a proven fact that people don't change unless they want to. So, unless you get out of your own way, you can't change. And by change, I mean changing from where you are, to being at the peak of your being unleashing all your gifts, stepping into your zone of genius, your seemingly unbelievable possibilities. 

Every person I have come across in life, is endowed with unique gifts, their special magic. But many a times they don't see that in them, they don't believe in it, they don't trust the magic, they are fearful of stepping into their own hidden power, they wait for the right moment, they wait for their gifts to be perfected, mastered till they feel it worthy enough of showing it to the world and what not. I get it totally. But, alas that day never comes in their life. Only they hang on to newer fears and reasoning for postponing it. The irony is just the opposite of what they believe. Once you get a glimpse of your magic in you, which you will for sure; all you need to do is to take the magic wand and just play with it without any further delay. As you play, you become expert in that over time, you gain mastery & you grow. By holding back, you are doing an injustice to yourself, the Universe which entrusted you with that magic for you aren't using it because of your own inhibitions & fears.

Look back to the earliest memory of you as a child. If need be, pick up an old picture of yours when you were a kid & saw that magic in you, believed in your possibilities & did whatever you felt like & wanted to. Who were you then? If I recall my days of who I was, I will be amazed at my own magic. A carefree, smart, confident, fearless spirit, a performer, a singer, a dancer, a happy kind person, unrestrained in my being, a sportsperson, full of possibilities and creativity. But, I let my inhibitions, my fears, my ego, my attachment to outcomes, my neediness, my impatience, my withdrawals, my version of stories get in my way & didn't allow myself to bloom to my exceptional possibilities. I allowed my magic to fade with time. I let it simmer inside me without giving it an outlet to expand & bloom. The first time I woke up from my illusions was when I attended a coach & leadership intensive at Los Angeles. There were brilliant coaches across the globe and their being had an impact on me, on who I was. All my fellow coaches saw the light in me, but I was the one who refrained from seeing that in me & so my actions reciprocated what I thought who I was. And then thankfully, one of them walked up to me and said,"Priyanka, do a favour to the Universe and the people out there who are waiting for you to make an impact in their lives by not holding back yourself. Don't hide your magic." Those words were enough for me to question myself as to what was bigger for me: my fears, my inhibitions or my commitment to be who I am meant to be? And thankfully I chose commitment over everything else. Hence, my insight from that intensive was: "It's so beautiful to bloom into the person that you are." In a way, embracing your magic. That was my breakthrough moment because I decided to act on that realization & not just leave it there. From there on, there was no looking back. I made up my mind to give an outlet to my magic, no matter what.

If you have forgotten your magic let me remind you with these lines:

You are full of possibilities,
Waiting for its release;
Don't hold back, don't hide,
Embrace your magic & just dive,
Today is the day to start,
Your inhibitions, I invite you to part;
Stand tall to your magic, your commitment,
You are here to make a dent.

And by writing all of these, not caring & fearing if I get likes or not, whether people follow me or not; I am refusing to bow down to my internal inhibitions, my ego, petty needs & standing tall to bring my magic to this world whatsoever. And if this inspires you to move ahead in your journey, my magic gets a shout out, I will ever be grateful because I am walking my path for my magic to bloom. 

Before I leave you in deep reflection, let me share few of my learning from the movie, The Lion King that I watched recently and I believe it had the magic that we needed to look beyond our fears & feed our possibilities:

• Leadership & coaching is all about modelling what you seek from others. Mufasa modeled who a leader, a coach is & helped Simba understand the true essence of leadership.
• Our life is more than what we do for ourselves. It is about the worthy pursuit that is for the greater humanity. Simba had the option, the comfort of not returning back to his land & run away from what he was meant to do, hide his magic; but he decided to keep his 'self' at bay & stood tall for his people, his land.
• Sometimes when you forget who you are, when you loose sight of the magic in you; the Universe gives subtle cues to get in touch with it. When Simba was shown the mirror as to who he truly was, he regained his power. It's all about rekindling that spark in you & let the flame burn bright lighting up the path for you & others.

No matter at what stage of life you might be in, you still can find the magic in you & let it evolve through you. So, don't wait, go for it. Remember, if you can dream secretly, you can make it come true. You have what it takes to make it true. Don't hold back, don't hide your magic. There is no midway, you do or you don't. 

Love & respect,
​Priyanka

After an onsite session today, my mind was totally blank. Everything was fine, the session went really well. It was productive & forward moving. Yet, the critic in me never stops working. I am not sure if this is how the mind of a passionate & driven person works! You work, you give your best, yet you aren't satisfied. You feel as if something is missing. Sometimes no amount of reward or applaud works. Sometimes it's just how it is; just being with that low feeling. And many a times we aren't aware of the exact emotion that is running through us. We give it different meaning based on what we perceive that emotion to be. But as I dived in, I realized it wasn't because of the session today but the exhaustion piling up from couple of days. And being a hands on person, always on the flow; I didn't realize that I had put myself down by not taking care of myself. Due to my busy schedule (my own creation again), I had missed my daily time for reflection & slowing down.

Sometimes small things like self-care, pausing, breathing right, eating healthy, sleeping adequate matters & makes a huge difference to our energy levels. Although everything was fine, I gave my tiredness the name of inaction & low feeling. The body too needs rest & I was not giving that to myself. As I sat down to journal my thoughts, I became aware of what was happening. Along with mental exhaustion, I realized there was physical exhaustion too. And instead of living in this moment, I went ahead & started thinking about the next thing that I had to do & prepare for. This mechanistic approach that I used to just switch from one mode to another, refrained me from experiencing the gratitude of the moment. I went way far ahead & so even caught myself with a headache. Our body is a great tool, only if we listen to it. My mind started working on another project that was ahead of me. And I was not doing all of these under any obligation but willingly because of my habitual thinking patterns. But this time I was aware. I caught myself since I was running away from acknowledging myself & my presence today. As a result of which, I found it hard to even experience the joy of the moment. Yes I find hard to acknowledge myself! Period! 

The irony is, today itself I was coaching my client on how he was missing on looking at his progress & his constant focus was on his lack. "What he didn't do, haven't done, could have done etc.?" And he too said that intellectually he is aware of all of these but slips into this habit of looking at the lack. And so he never feels the happiness in the moment. It's true that we don't see our blind spots unless we do the work on ourselves to uncover it. And now I am just letting my thoughts flow without having any attachment to the outcome whatsoever. As I write, I get the clarity as to what is actually happening to me. It has nothing to do with drive or passion or thinking about another project; but a message that my physical being is giving me & that is: "Fill your cup. You have emptied it to support others that needed your energy & vibration. It's time to fill that up to be able to again start a new day with renewed power."

In similar lines, how many of you have forgotten to take care of yourself? If you have, it's time you don't put yourself down but rejuvenate yourself. Only from that space you can serve more powerfully. And the self-care can happen right from the simple act of giving self-love to oneself by just breathing deeply. Take care of your mind, body and soul to be able to multiply your energy & strength. Had I not chosen to sit in this discomfort & pen down what was happening, I wouldn't have arrived at this conclusion today. Yes, journaling is powerful! It is a great stress-buster. It gives clarity of thought & centers the mind. And sometimes just acknowledging your thoughts & emotions allow your mind to calm down. Just acknowledging the fact that it is there & letting it go, is enough to do the work. A small pause, slowing down, makes a huge difference. And journaling enables one to do that. 

Love & respect,
​Priyanka

"The secret of happiness is freedom, the secret of freedom is courage." - Carrie Jones

How would ultimate success look like to you? "Metaphorically, it would be like standing at the peak of the Mount Everest with my arms wide open and feeling the breeze on my face. I will see the world from the top most point, I will hear an unusual calmness that I have been longing for & feel peace from within, a sense of freedom that I had never experienced before. And when I experience all of these, I will be sure of being successful." So, literally there was a starting point and an end point. A line segment, from point A to point B, that I had defined for myself to experience the feeling of being successful, free and calm. My happiness was attached to an outcome that I had defined for myself! Anything short of that won't make me happy.

The spotlight of my life was not on my present moment, but into the future. And as I craved for that experience, it went further & further. My present looked gloomy to me because I started to draw the line from the past and stretch it in a similar way that I am habituated to do. Picking on the excuses, explanations for not being able to make it happen despite of the desire, feeling frustrated at the results that I was creating for myself. Oblivious of the fact that the best that anyone can do is here & now, performing fully, to the best of your ability right here, right now! No dragging of lines from the past, or fixating on the future; but living the moment like painting a fresh new canvas everyday with renewed zeal & vigour, is the key to real happiness, a master's journey! And there is a master in each one of you only if you allow yourself to see that. 

"Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power."
​
Success on the outside has no value when there is no success inside. And ironically, because of various reasons and excuses, we tend to forget the inward journey. Or let's put it this way, in this humdrum existence & superficiality, we easily tend to get lost. We are more involved in making the outside world better than making our inner world radiant & vibrant. We start doing things for people who are important to us without even really understanding what they want. Best of all, we forget what excited us, what made us alive as a child & what we truly wanted. We forget/refrain from asking ourselves this question: "What's my real reason for being here & how can I muster the courage to act on it?" And so, like a rudderless boat, we keep sailing to eventually reach nowhere & keep leading others to the same destination. The way we lead ourselves in any area of our life is the way we lead ourselves in every aspect of our life. The basic dynamics never change however hard we may do otherwise. And we inspire our younger generation who is observing us, to lead in the same way. We do everything to look good from the outside, but sadly we do nothing to beautify our inner world. And what does your inner world consists of? Your powerful mind, your pure soul & your body that is an anchor to both of these. All of these has to grow in tandem. You can't do away one & outgrow the other.

For major part of my life, my focus was on the journey outside. May be that's why I was addicted to exploring new places, new routes & never satisfied. Hardly did I realize that there was an untapped place inside me that I never knew existed, and so never traveled to, until my intuition awakened me to do so. My quest is getting quenched as I walk the inward journey, unlike other times that made me more thirsty. This truly proves the adage,"You don't get enough of what you don't need." As I walk this inward journey, I find inner joy, purpose, fulfillment, forgiveness, gratitude, peace & meaning in my existence. Many more to uncover. And I am sure you must be wondering like any logical & highly driven leader/person: How do these have an impact in my productivity, creativity, performance, my aspirations etc. etc? How does this even impact the organization & the practical world that we live in? Yes, I too did have these thoughts of getting real, practical & not just talk spiritual because I didn't want to go to a no man's land & meditate there with no awareness of what I am doing & how it affected me. But, I realized there is so much power in these simple things as we call. It has the power to better our external world. What's the science behind this: tap your mind, you change your mindset and with a transformation there, your actions change and so does your results (inward & outward). Tap your physical energy, you tap your infinite vibrancy, vigour & zeal just like the younger you. Tap your soul power, you tap into the power of the Universe, your intuition, the collective power & can transcend to your highest self. And then, from that space what do you think you are going to create?! An entire new world, a world that you wanted to live, living your deepest dreams, having deep connections with self & others, mastering your skills & gifts, enabling self-leadership & discipline, personal growth & heightened awareness. As you tap into your infiniteness & potential deep inside, you carve out possibilities for yourself that you have never imagined. You are guided towards the miraculous outcomes effortlessly. And as you grow, you enable the growth in others too. And all of these intangibles lead to tangible results in your outer world. You kindle your inner fire to light up not just your world but the world of those whom you lead, nurture, inspire & care for.

Leadership is so easy only if you allow simplicity to creep in. But, in today's complexity, simplicity is hard. Sadly our focus has always been on complexity. And so we make every bit of thing complex to get the kick, drive and what not. Simplicity is hard because we have cultivated the habit of hoarding; hoarding everything that comes our way. As a result we can't identify the essential and do away with the rest. The famous artist Michelangelo quoted,"Every block of stone has a statue inside it & it is the task of the sculptor to discover it." To uncover that masterpiece in us, we have to dive inside to discover that by making our way through every complexity that we have created for ourselves. 

How will a leader at the top lead an organization to the next highest level when he/she has never walked the inward journey to lead oneself towards excellence?! And the impact of this percolates down to not only the leader's life, but every life that he/she touches professionally & personally. It depends on the leader's choice to embrace Kaizen (a Japanese concept that means continuous incremental improvement) in his/her life. What kind of game he/she wants to play, it all depends on that. A game of mediocrity or a game of infinite excellence?! When the leader is ready, positive transformations starts happening in his/her life & other's lives too. Takeaway is: Self-mastery is the DNA of leadership mastery. 

Love & respect,
Priyanka

"I keep a lot to myself because it is difficult to find people who understand me, not judge me & take advantage of me".

These are the exact words expressed by one of the executives at the top after a deep conversation around current challenges. Most of the successful & driven people that I have come across share the same piece of concern. What is your greatest challenge at this point in time? And to this they just say, "Combating loneliness. It's lonely at the top. It doesn't feel great. You miss being just heard genuinely. Most of the time it is the role that is being heard to & not the person embodying that role. You miss expressing yourself the way you want to. It looks like I have lost the freedom to experience myself." Being alone is one thing & feeling alone even when you are surrounded by people is another thing. And here I am referring to that latter feeling. It sucks and is painful! More so, research says that loneliness has been associated with problems like attention, stress, cognitive function & in worst scenarios also lead to Alzheimer’s disease. 

WHAT PROPELLED YOU TO BE IN THIS SPACE IN THE FIRST PLACE?
When you let the external world decide how your life would turn out to be & allow it to define success for you, this is what happens gradually. You drift away from the very thing that you are craving for: that is deep connection. You can't have enough of what you don't need. Driven people are focused on getting things done, they are go-getters who achieve things quickly & are always on the look out for the next thing to tackle. They don't settle for low-hanging fruits but strive for the next big thing. They have an innate desire to stand out from the rest. Slowly this becomes a habit and a drive that becomes hard to resist. You start seeing everything from a lens of success & big picture pre-defined by the world & your influencers. And as you grow, you start playing the role of a self-critic to yourself. You lose sight of what truly matters for you. Yes, success is what is important for you but when success at all cost becomes the defining mantra for you, you slowly start losing that connection with yourself & others that truly matter to you. You outgrow your friends, communities, people in your life as you grow. You feel disconnected to most of the groups that you were a part of because of the journey that you have had. You cannot leave, nor you can cling on to. You are somewhere midway oscillating between the two extremes and trying to figure out how to combat this. Leaving is painful & hanging in there is unfulfilling! And thus you slowly loose the connect and feel lonely despite of being a part of so many groups, communities and the like. There can be numerous reasons for you to have arrived in this space. Some might be due to voluntary choices that you had to choose from what you had; some might just be an unconscious pattern of life that you follow through. But the fact is, this space isn't serving you because it is taking up lot of your time & energy. Loneliness is depleting & so something needs to be done to combat that.

COMMON MEDIUMS ADOPTED TO COMBAT LONELINESS 
Numbing oneself from feeling this loneliness with other distractions such as forming new unfulfilling & unavailable connections, going the virtual way, being busy in the social media, partying, travelling etc. All these are nothing but tactics to run away from loneliness to eventually land up being more lonelier. Inability to figure this out leads to stress and anxiety. This is a vicious cycle, a never ending one & it is up to you to decide to cut it once & for all. 

When you are not comfortable with who you are, with your own self; when you have gone to that spectrum of your being that becomes so unfamiliar to you that you start doubting yourself & your very essence is where the first disconnect starts. When you are connected deeply to who you are, you are connected to the source of every origin. And from that space, no amount of loneliness shall be experienced. But when we go afar in the journey and get lost amidst the crowd is when we feel lost & lonely. We fail to see connections within & outside of us. 

SUGGESTED GROWTH STRATEGY FOR HIGHLY DRIVEN & SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE TO FORM DEEP & FULFILLING INNER CONNECTIONS WITH SELF & OTHERS

• Own your loneliness.
• A shift from succeeding at any cost to being inner-directed.
• Asking yourself as to what you long for rather than doing what only your roles demand of you.
• Slowing down to reflect and introspect.
• Acknowledging your emotions and not running away from it.
• Allowing yourself to dive into the inner basement, your core and asking yourself who you are truly and authentically, will provide you the guidance to lead forward towards fulfillment & deeper connections.
• What if you choose a goal that inspires the person inside you to do just for the sake of doing it from a space of love and not just another achievement?
• Instead of the either/or approach, what about having an approach of both/and.
• A shift from either succeed or have my emotional life to having both.
• A shift from success as an approval for being good to feeling good from inside no matter what.
• Enjoying relationships outside of your role.

​Wishing you a life that is fulfilling, abundant & having meaningful connections for you to be able to experience the authenticity & greatness within.

Love & respect,
Priyanka

“NEVER CONFUSE A SINGLE DEFEAT WITH A FINAL DEFEAT.” – F SCOTT FITZGERALD

Until I worked with my coach, I didn’t realize that the memories of my past failures, negative beliefs, low self esteem & self-image was sabotaging my own growth & success. I was stuck & so were my clients. I could take them deeper only to the level that I dared to go & not beyond. This reminds me of the words of a Master Coach, “You can take your clients as deep as you have gone yourself.” What did this exactly mean?! I wondered as I started my journey as a professional coach two years back. All I was excited about then was to get certified, credentialed, head towards the magnificent & elite world of coaches & make positive difference. But as I progressed in this journey, I realized that it is very important to uncover the blind spots that are there in each & every one of us. However successful we might be, there is always scope for improvement! This mere realization shifted my being. And so, I decided to have my own coach to enable me to see through everything that I resisted.

A SHIFT IN MY OWN BEING AS A COACH IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING ELSE
That day I was confused & was unable to decide what to choose from. Another certification to stand out from the crowd or hire my own coach to do the deep inner work. Why was I wanting to go ahead with another certification? What was my underlying motive for getting one? I realized that certification was another validation for me that I unconsciously sought for; but transformative work with my coach was for myself to take me to the next level. This required me to shift my awareness of myself, work on my leadership depth & be edgy to do something that I was uncomfortable doing. A shift in my being is more important than anything else! I chose to be vulnerable & retrospect. Some questions that came up for me and that helped me to make the choice were:

• Can I enroll a client for a service that I am myself resisting & taking time to decide?
• How can I expect my prospects to hire a coach when I as a coach is resisting to have one for me?
• Do I lack in knowledge or do I need to uncover something inside me that was acting as a bottleneck to my growth?

These questions hit me hard and I finally made the wise choice.

FAILURE QUOTIENT: BEING ABLE TO USE FAILURES TO ADVANCE IN YOUR LIFE
Here’s how I redefined my failure quotient and started playing fearlessly in my journey as a coach. I used to be fearful of failures. My failure quotient was very low! Noteworthy that the failure quotient of highly successful people is usually very high.  Being a topper all throughout my school life, when I first tasted failure during the crucial transitioning period to adulthood, I felt very humiliated and lost. I couldn’t take that failure. Although intellectually I knew the benefits of graciously failing, a part of me rejected failures since then. If I look at my patterns, I started to play low after that one failure. I was devasted and subconsciously imprinted a negative self-image and lowered the bar for myself. Although I looked very confident from outside, I felt very low from the inside. As the author of the New York Times bestseller, “The Secret”, Rhonda Byrne says, “You attract what you think about most.” And so, I was attracting everything that would prove this belief of mine to be true. I played only to that level that I was sure of winning to escape from the pain of failures. This was nothing but a sheer way of blocking myself from exponential growth. The moment I was about to take the leap to the next level, I sabotaged it unconsciously & repeated my old patterns to find me in the same vicious cycle. Only if I won an award, a trophy, a certificate or the like, I felt validated and it was a boost to my self-worth. Ultimately, I had to challenge my old patterns and form new ones that would serve me. Today, I am confident from inside and don’t seek for any validation. I look forward to failing and have raised my bar. I have redefined my failure quotient! And I am glad I did that. I have sailed my journey from the comfort zone, through the fear zone, surpassing the learning zone and finally to the growth zone. I give credit to my coach for this transition. And I have also realized that the more coachable you are, better a coach you become.

Love,
Priyanka 

Feedback, the word itself gives a beautiful understanding of the concept. Feed means to give and back means from furthest from the front. If you combine the two, it means giving from a point where you are not into it but far away to be able to see the whole picture. Feedback means to give back a critical information that would add value to the overall intent & goal achievement in a positive way. But the question is, do we really give the feedback or we impose our believes & views on to it? This reflection will make a great shift in the way the feedback is perceived, received & eventually holds the capacity to improve & excel. Sadly, we don't give feedback but we give our point of view only and want this to be accepted. Any good feedback holds the power to transform the course of actions, thereby enabling it to move towards the direction of the goal. You can pick any instance from your experience at work or generally. Whenever you feel that your feedback is not creating any ripple effect as it should, take a pause to see where you are faltering, where is the loophole, where are you missing out, what's the missing piece that will enable the feedback to be powerful enough to be accepted & taken into account. 

Here I am quoting an instance where an executive came to me & shared the inability to give critical feedback and about its futility since the receiver hasn't shown any improvement in behaviour, productivity nor any concrete positive result as expected despite of the numerous feedback that was given. And what happens in such a scenario? We get defensive and try to prove our points and in this attempt, our intent of giving the feedback gets lost altogether. Well, here goes the conversation. 

Me: Do you really want to see positive results?
Executive: Yes, of course. That's why I am bringing this up to you.

Me: Will you be willing to accept & adopt ways that may not be the usual ones but different from what you have been doing so far?
Executive: Hesitantly, "Yes, if that helps."

Food for thought: We all want to adopt short-cuts. We have no time to reflect on something that might be useful for us in the long run. We fail to see that these short-cuts are creating nothing but putting us back to our challenges again and again just taking longer time & leaving us in the illusion of creating results. Time we wake up!

Me: Great then. You have tried to do it in ways you thought was appropriate, but you didn't get the desired results. I would like you to reflect on these questions and come to me again with the answers, insights that you will have upon reflection.
Executive: Sure. But I don't want to waste time. I want this to be fast.

Me: You have already wasted much time giving numerous feedback which didn't work out. Will you take responsibility for that and the impact it had on your work & that of the team's? Can you just slow down a bit to be able to pace up soon?
Executive: Yes, I know that and understand what you are saying. Please tell me what I need to reflect upon.
This happened more in a conversational way but I am just laying out in the form of questions.So, here they are:

• What is your intent of sharing the feedback?
• What does it mean to you when your feedback is not accepted or doesn't create any outcome? How do you react & what do you do next?
• Do you accept feedback from your peers, juniors, seniors, stakeholders? How do you respond?
• What's your general way of reacting to feedback?
• Do you use feedback to remind your team member's weaknesses, strengths or their possibilities?
• Do you believe in the power of feedback? Does it facilitate transformation or a routine activity of an executive with no visible outcome? Your perception really matters here. Reflect.
• Is this a tool that you use to demean your team members' contribution & scare them off?
• Is your feedback powerful enough to elicit creativity or defensiveness in the team member?
• What is your approach? Constructive or destructive? 
• What homework & reflections do you do before you give the feedback?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being low and 10 being high; how curious you are about the team member that you are dealing with? How is your rapport with the team member? Do you know what the actual problem might be that you might be overlooking with your assumptions and judgments?
• What is the essence that you see of the team member? 
• What is it that you are not seeing/focusing on that could be crucial to your feedback giving?
• Can you think of creative ways to ensure that your feedback is rightly received?
• Are you in the playground playing or you are the coach? Because if you are in the playground, you'll think like the player and give the player's perspective but if you stand out from the playground, you can see the whole picture and can give a perspective that is not known to the players but very valuable which the players don't see it? Are you willing to step back and see from the outside?

There were lot many questions like this and finally to my pleasant surprise (which actually is not a surprise because I had faith in the Executive's potential, wisdom & ability) the executive came up with some beautiful revelations that I am going to share with you in the form of some tips that will help you to give feedback that is well received, elicit actions & brings about positive transformation.

• Slow down to give feedback. 
• Do your homework to get a sense of the overall situation. 
• Talk to the person that you want to give feedback to be able to understand what it is that he/she is struggling with. Get curious, spend time. 
• Put aside your assumptions and have an open perspective to accept things as they are.
• Ask questions not to prove your worth but interested questions that will create a rapport with the person and elicit responses that are crucial for the feedback giving process.
• Feedback shouldn't just point out the mistakes but also feedback should include acknowledgement of the person.
• Feedback is about not how good it is, but about the person you are giving feedback to. So, it's power depends on how well it is received. To receive well, you need to create a space for them to trust you with their insecurities, inhibitions. Major shifts happen here. 
• If you give it well, it will be received well.
• Don't block your feedback with what you believe is true, sometimes your ideas may not be appropriate. You may not have the answers too. Be willing to accept that & work together to find a solution that is practical and worth the time.
• Your work as an executive doesn't just end after giving feedback but your constant support is required by the team member to be able to really work on the feedback.
• Be willing to help and create an environment where people feel safe to communicate their challenges and failures at the right time so that you can guide them at the right time.
• Allow them to embrace their weaknesses and help them work on these. Give them that time.
• Be their coach, not just someone pointing the mistakes. Put yourself in their shoes.
• Be a role model by being open to feedback. Seek feedback from them and ask for ways as to how they would handle this situation if they were to lead it. 
• Give weight to the bigger intention & not to your ego of being accepted or not.
• Transform through your feedback by making them genuine, authentic and realistic.  

And as an outcome of all these, the executive could make that shift and evoke desired response from the team member that led to increased productivity & performance. 
​
Next time you blame someone for not receiving your feedback, look within; reflect what you can do to change that. By doing this you regain the power to transform and not by holding another responsible for the outcome that you are unable to create. To be in this space, lot of awareness & openness is required. And great leaders cultivate that and so they hold the capacity to bring about change & live a life that looks impossible & daunting to many. 

What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make and what kind of leader you want to be. The choice is absolutely yours. Whenever you are ready & willing, I will be happy to have a conversation to support you to be that leader that you wish to be. 

Believing in you,
Priyanka    

As we are progressing, as technology is facilitating connections, giving us new ways to interact with one another, we are becoming more & more disconnected. Technology is not the problem, but our ability to use our wisdom is! We have lost it. We have lost our ability to sieve high quality from low, from what is real to superficial, we have been conditioned & molded to believe what is just projected to us. We have lost our ability to decide, gauge & even reflect on what should be believed, absorbed, held on to & let go. 

This blog is an outcome of many incidents & awakening that I have experienced over the last few days/weeks. I see many people posting their best pictures, best days, their highest thoughts, their success stories etc. etc in the social platforms likes Facebook, LinkedIn & tweet about their best ideas/thoughts. Whether they uphold it or not, that's a different debate altogether. All these things are good momentarily but very distracting & short-lived. At least to me this doesn't create any impact because behind the reels, another reality lies. A reality that you are running away from, a reality that you are finding hard to acknowledge & accept, a reality that you have become uncomfortable with because of all the illusions that you created. The rat race of being seen as the best is increasing amongst people & this pains me. Sometimes I too get tempted to be in this race when I see the world just believing in what is shown & not taking a moment to reflect, use their wisdom to figure out what is true & what is fake. But then fortunately I can see the consequence of that choice which I know is short lived & not fulfilling to me. Slowly, rather than creating an impact, your focus gets shifted to how I can get admiration & approval for being best, seen as best. And for sure, that's not my intent.

The saddest part is, in this chaos when someone genuinely puts something concrete, of value & impact, we ignore it; rather it gets ignored amidst the fake. A habit of being in haste is slowly getting formed. Majority of the people don't even realize that they are being influenced by this social "seen as best" revolution which isn't taking them anywhere. And a new form of disorder is taking shape: Social Media Obsession & Anxiety. Read more about this. Hail Google! 

Recently an incident happened & it shook me to the core. One of the acquaintances who was always projecting the best on the social media, suddenly gave up on his life. This news was shocking for me! What happened & why? Everything seemed alright. Life on the social media seemed so good. No one could even doubt that something substantial was happening on the inside that was hidden from the world. Something so troubling that one decided to end one's life?! Based on what was shown, nobody even cared to look past the projection. Nobody cared to even ask just one simple question: "Is everything ok?" We assume that everything is fine. But trust me, things may not be as it is shown. Deep down the reality may be very different. This is a trap that we are trapped in! 

Many years ago I saw a couple posting pictures of them projecting their best into the world. They were one of the couples who set couple goals for others to follow & imbibe. And months later, I got to know that the man committed suicide because of some personal relationship issues. This shook me. What's wrong with us? Social media is here to facilitate connections & not to enable our attachment to our best projections. We are human! We have ups & downs. We have problems in our career, relationships & its okay to have these. What if we choose to drop the projections & show what's real without packaging, filtering & sugar-coating? What's the fear? Fear of abandonment, rejection, looked down upon? Do you then think that those individuals who only puts you in the pedestal for your projections, worth your time & effort? Who are you then putting down by holding on to them? If not dropping it altogether, can we at least choose & care to ask: "How are you?" That would make a lot of difference in someone's life. And I say this from my own experience & encounter with people. They have huge follower-ship but say, "I don't have a real connection or a real friend. They all come to me for some ulterior motives not because they care for me." Isn't this a sad state of affair? They cry in front of me, they share their stories, their pain, their concerns but that doesn't make them bad, low or unappealing. That doesn't mean that they are not having good memories or goodness in life. All it means is you are human & its okay to be real, to embrace yourself with all your imperfections, challenges, dark sides. 

Our work is not to be perfect but be real. So, drop the mask, the projection & be real. At least if not anything, you will give flame to a movement where people will be comfortable being themselves, being seen as they are. Living your life is more important than the petty projections! Sooner you realize, you will make a better & meaningful living for yourself & your significant others. I would be keen on seeing that real self in you; no filter, no projection, no packaging but the real you. Let's use technology to connect with that person & not ignite the "seen as being best" race. Likewise, let's see the real talent, the potential, the possibilities, the real value, the depth & not just the projection. This way we will create a better world for us & generations to come. I take the responsibility for creating an environment for people where sadly projection is given more importance than substance & reality. Will you too? If yes, start from today. Acknowledge a person who is real; reach out to one person & ask how he/she is. Read beneath the lines & make a difference, save a life. 

This blog is my gift to you to ignite this awareness in you to hold on to reality & let go projection. 

Believing in you,
Priyanka